HADRIANI BEVERLANDI DE FORNICATIONE CAVENDA ADMONITIO. Sive adhoratio ad pudicitiam et castitatem. Editio nova & ab autore correcta. Juxta exemplar Londinense.

BEVERLAND, Hadriaan.

Published by Amsterdam unknown printer, 1698

About this Item

8vo, pp. 109, [3] blank; complete with final blank leaf G8; a very fine copy, uncut in contemporary marbled wrappers, in a cloth slipcase. Modern bookplate of William Gemmell. Second edition. Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716) is one of the oddest and most controversial scholars of his time. Born and educated in the Dutch republic, he came to Oxford in 1672 to read at the Bodleian Library. Widely learned and highly intelligent, he nonetheless courted controversy by concentrating his studies on the history of sex: his first work, De peccato originale (1678) argued that the original sin was sexual desire, a characteristic of humanity that came to us with the fall of Adam and Eve. Subsequent works included one on female lust (1679), and for this he was expelled from the university of Leiden and was compelled to flee to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. Despite a generous inheritance, which he spent on books and art, he gradually subsided into poverty, and he never regained the freedom of movement which might allow him to return to the continent. The present work was written partly with this in mind: it was first published the year before, in London (Wing B2116), and is an apologetic treatise warning against the sin of fornication. But, as Karen Hollewand remarks in new DNB, the work was 'too satirical to convince many of the sincerity of any apology for his earlier works'. This edition appears to have been printed in the low countries: the printing could perhaps also have been managed by Beverland himself, who would have desired its contents to be known even more in his homeland than in England. It is addressed to the scholar and Arabist Edward Bernard (d. 1697), with a dedication dated February 1690 so presumably Beverland had either written it many years before, or wanted his readers to think so. ESTC online only notes four copies, but the book is in fact a good deal commoner than this would make it seem, and copies are fairly widespread in the older institutions. Seller Inventory # 25242

Bibliographic Details

Title: HADRIANI BEVERLANDI DE FORNICATIONE CAVENDA ...

Publisher: Amsterdam unknown printer

Publication Date: 1698

Binding: Soft cover